Ut2k7 and willy waving?
Currently, the UE3 is licensed to many major games developers, Notable Microsoft and Sony, both of who are shipping the UE3 with their console SDKs. This means there’ll be some serious good looking games coming out on both the XBox 360 and the PS3. There’s already a movie of Frame City Killer, an upcoming XBox 360 title which we took a first look at HERE. Epic themselves are working on Gears Of War for the XBox 360, and while it’s not clear if the Frame City Killer movie is in-game stuff, Mark assures me that the Gears O War footage is, and he should know, he is the Vice President after all. Needless to say, a game by Epic using their own engine is looking incredible. Of course, we asked the inevitable questions about Unreal Tournament 2007 and all Mark would say at this stage is that it’ll be here when it’s here… but he did reveal that there’s a new mode which at this time is called ‘Conquest’ and is like a multiplayer Assault mode… but beyond that, he wouldn’t be drawn any further.
Finally, we asked Mark his thoughts on the current gen GFX cards and what gamers would need to get the best from their games. Interestingly, Mark is a firm believer in playing a game the way a developer intended it to be played, with as many of the graphical options tuned on as possible. Mark feels that the competition gamers who knock all the detail setting off while playing on a 7800GT SLI rig are essentially cheating. His argument is that if a developer has made a game where textures or leaves work against a player spotting another, that’s just part of the game. Knocking down detail levels to make opposing players stand out more is just a form of cheating.
Competition rigs are going to be just about the fastest gaming rigs on the planet and are more than capable of playing the games ate high framerates and resolutions with all the graphics options set to high. Pro-gamers should be made to play the game with these settings as the old argument of framerates just doesn’t apply with the likes of a 7800GT SLI set-up in a rig. Mark believes that with the power of today’s high-end cards and CPUs, competition organisers should start making players compete in games with all the graphical effects set to the max. This would make the game far more one of skill and ability as gamers would have to take advantage of the game world to get the edge over their opponent rather than ‘reaction speed tests’ today’s shooters have become.
Mark admits that to get the very best from the Unreal Engine 3, you’ll need some high end kit, and perhaps even one of the new PhysX cards due out in the next few months. The beauty of the UE3 is that its totally scalable, allowing developers to cater for lower end systems at the same time as providing all those graphical options to make the 7800 owners sit back and smile smugly as the engine gives their cars a thorough work out.
On the subject of graphics hardware, Mark believes that we’re now at a point where developers can keep pace with hardware innovations, allowing the early adopters, i.e., gamers, to see the benefit in upgrading straight away, rather than waiting for developers to catch up and start taking advantage of a card’s new features. That said, Mark is keen to point out that mid-range hardware can still push decent framerates with many graphics options set to high. He believes that today’s hardware is more than capable of maintaining playable framerates as well as enabling every graphical effect the develop wants to throw into the game, allowing gamers to experience the game the way the developers always intended it… So perhaps that ‘The way it’s meant to be played’ strap line from NVIDIA isn’t just ad-speak after all?
